Advances in computing and networking technology have made new forms of media content possible. For example, virtual reality media content is available that may immerse viewers (or “users”) into interactive virtual reality worlds that the users may experience by directing their attention to any of a variety of things being presented in the immersive virtual reality world at the same time. For example, at any time during the presentation of the virtual reality media content, a user experiencing the virtual reality media content may look around the immersive virtual reality world in any direction with respect to both a horizontal dimension (e.g., forward, backward, left, right, etc.) as well as a vertical dimension (e.g., up, down, etc.), giving the user a sense that he or she is actually present in and experiencing the immersive virtual reality world.
For a user to experience an immersive virtual reality world, a backend server (e.g., a computing system operated by a virtual reality media provider) may be used to transmit pixel data representative of the immersive virtual reality world to a media player device associated with the user over a network. In this type of network-based virtual reality media delivery configuration, the media player device may use the pixel data to render a particular scene (e.g., a particular area of the immersive virtual reality world that the user is looking at) within the immersive virtual reality world in substantially real time as the pixel data is received by the media player device.
Unfortunately, transmitting pixel data representative of the entire immersive virtual reality world in high resolution may be an inefficient use of resources and/or may present other technical challenges. In particular, transmitting high-resolution pixel data representative of the entire immersive virtual reality world may utilize significant resources of the backend server providing the pixel data, the media player device receiving the pixel data, and/or the network carrying the pixel data.